Healing Roots
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Healing Roots Series: Epistemologies of Healing General Editors: David Parkin, Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford and Elisabeth Hsu, Professor of Anthropology, University of Oxford This series publishes monographs and edited volumes on indigenous (so-called traditional) medical knowledge and practice, alternative and complementary medicine, and ethnobiological studies that relate to health and illness. The emphasis of the series is on the way indigenous epistemologies inform healing, against a background of comparison with other practices, and in recognition of the fl uidity between them. Volume 1 Volume 9 Conjuring Hope: Healing and Magic in Moral Power: The Magic of Witchcraft Contemporary Russia Koen Stroeken Galina Lindquist Volume 10 Volume 2 Medicine Betweeen Science and Religion: Precious Pills: Medicine and Social Explorations on Tibetan Grounds Change among Tibetan Refugees in India Edited by Vincanne Adams, Mona Audrey Prost Schrempf, and Sienna R. Craig Volume 3 Volume 11 Working with Spirit: Experiencing Fortune and the Cursed: The Sliding Izangoma Healing in Contemporary Scale of Time in Mongolian Divination South Africa Katherine Swancutt Jo Thobeka Wreford Volume 12 Volume 4 Manufacturing Tibetan Medicine: The Dances with Spiders: Crisis, Celebrity Creation of an Industry and the Moral and Celebration in Southern Italy Economy of Tibetanness Karen Lüdtke Martin Saxer Volume 5 Volume 13 The Land Is Dying: Contingency, The Body in Balance: Humoral Creativity and Confl ict in Western Kenya Medicines in Practice Paul Wenzel Geissler and Ruth Jane Edited by Peregrine Horden and Prince Elisabeth Hsu Volume 6 Volume 14 Plants, Health and Healing: On the Asymmetrical Conversations: Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical Contestations, Circumventions, and the Anthropology Blurring of Therapeutic Boundaries Edited by Elisabeth Hsu and Stephen Edited by Harish Naraindas, Johannes Harris Quack, and William S. Sax Volume 7 Volume 15 Morality, Hope and Grief: Anthropologies Healing Roots: Anthropology in Life and of AIDS in Africa Medicine Edited by Hansjörg Dilger and Ute Luig Julie Laplante Volume 8 Volume 16 Folk Healing and Health Care Practices Ritual Retellings: Luangan Healing in Britain and Ireland: Stethoscopes, Performances through Practice Wands and Crystals Isabell Herrmans Edited by Ronnie Moore and Stuart McClean ' Healing Roots Anthropology in Life and Medicine Julie Laplante berghahn N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D www.berghahnbooks.com Published in 2015 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com ©2015 Julie Laplante All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Laplante, Julie, author. Healing roots : anthropology in life and medicine / Julie Laplante. pages cm. — (Epistemologies of healing ; v. 15) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-78238-554-7 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-78238-555-4 (ebook) 1. Artemisia afra—Therapeutic use—South Africa. 2. Medicinal plants— South Africa. 3. Traditional medicine—South Africa. 4. Medical anthropology—South Africa. 5. Ethnopharmacology—South Africa. 6. Molecular biology—Social aspects. 7. Drugs—Testing. 8. Tuberculosis— Chemotherapy. I. Title. II. Series: Epistemologies of healing ; v. 15. RM666.A775L36 2015 306.4610968—dc23 2014029572 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper. ISBN: 978-1-78238-554-7 hardback ISBN: 978-1-78238-555-4 ebook To Lo and Oiy for doing healing in life 'Contents List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements x List of Abbreviations xii Introduction. Tracing the Preclinical Trial of an Indigenous Plant 1 Chapter 1. Knowing Umhlonyane/Artemisia afra 12 Chapter 2. Engaging in Medicine 44 Chapter 3. Tracing Medicine: Wayfaring 76 Chapter 4. Imagining Indigeneity 134 Chapter 5. Healing the Nation 159 Chapter 6. Dreams, Ancestors and Sound Healing 184 Chapter 7. Weaving Molecules in Life 203 Conclusion. Imagining the Clinical Trial 229 References 258 Index 276 vii ' Illustrations 1.1. Artemisia afra (Jacq. ex. Willd), December 2007 19 3.1. Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) branch meeting, November 2007 78 3.2. TICIPS project A. afra powder and powdered animal feed, University of Western Cape (UWC), October 2007 82 3.3. Dried leaves of A. afra 82 3.4. A. afra powder 82 3.5. Liquifying A. afra with boiling water to be mixed with the animal feed 83 3.6. Grinding A. afra animal feed 83 3.7. Visit to Delft laboratories’ medicinal plant garden with a group of izangoma and izinyanga, November 2007 85 3.8. A. afra on display in Delft laboratories’ medicinal plant garden (inscription on panel reads ‘Lenga, Umhlonyane, Artemisia Afrika’), November 2007 85 3.9. Guided tour of Delft laboratories with a group of izangoma and izinyanga, December 2007 87 3.10. Guided tour of Delft laboratories with a group of izangoma and izinyanga, December 2007 88 3.11. A. afra bush under the clothesline in a Rastafarian family’s backyard, Delft township, Cape Town, February 2008 90 viii Illustrations' 3.12. Rastafarian community garden project showing A. afra growing and drying in the sun, Muizenberg township, Cape Town, February 2008 90 3.13. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden map of the ‘Useful Plant Garden’, Cape Town, December 2007 92 3.14. Rastafarian bossiedoktor medicinal plant stall in Cape Town market, February 2008 94 3.15. Xhosa chemist’s shop in Khayelitsha township, Cape Town, August 2010 96 3.16. Xhosa chemist’s shop in Khayelitsha township, Cape Town, August 2010 96 3.17. Gathering roots during a plant collection journey, outskirts of Cape Town, January 2008 97 3.18. Meditative discussions of relations with the environment, Atlantis dunes, outskirts of Cape Town, January 2008 98 3.19. Sunsplash Rastafarian festival, fi lled with wild herbs sold by Rastafarian sakmanne (bag-men) spiritualist members of the Rastafarian community, Philippi township, Cape Town, November 2007 100 3.20. A. afra fi elds, Grassroots Group, outskirts of Cape Town, December 2007 101 3.21. Isangoma, Khayelitsha township, Cape Town, January 2008 123 5.1. Delft township, Cape Town, February 2008 160 5.2. The Everlivings, photograph by Melissa Robertson, February 2008 162 5.3. Marcus Garvey Rastafarian community welcoming banner, Philippi township, Cape Town, January 2008 166 ix DAcknowledgements Following umhlonyane on its trails and trials was done as a senior research fellow within the Biomedicine in Africa research group at the Max Planck Institute für etnologische forshung in Halle (Saale), Germany, led by Richard Rottenburg. I am very grateful to the insti- tution for its full financial support of the research conducted from 2006 to 2010, as well as to the insights I received from colleagues throughout its unfolding. While conceiving Healing Roots I bene- fited from conversations with Trevor Pinch, Margaret Lock, Sheila Jasanoff, Stacey Langwick, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Vihn-Kim Nguyen, as well as research associates Wenzel Geissler and Ruth Prince. I particularly thank my research colleagues Virginie Tallio, Thamar Klein, Babette Mueller-Rohstroh, René Gerrets and Julia Zenker for their support and team spirit, as well as extremely helpful and insightful students Norman Schräpel and Thomas Thadevaldt, both in Germany and in South Africa. And I, of course, thank Rich- ard Rottenburg for his thorough insights and support orienting the unravelling of the research as it came into being. The transnational research consortium conducting the preclinical of Artemisia afra fol- lowed throughout the research is The International Center for In- digenous Phytotherapy Studies (TICIPS), based in both the United States and South Africa, and I thank its participants for their collab- oration and hospitality, in particular researchers from the University of the Western Cape. I here thank Quinton Johnson, Wilfred Mabu- sela, James Syce, James Mukinda and anthropologist Diana Gibson for their collaboration, time and knowledge. From the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine in Cape Town, I thank Dr. Muazzam Jacob, Alex Valentine, Willem Hanekom and Hassan Mohammed, as well as Nceba Gqaleni from the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, Leszek Vincent and William Folk from Missouri University, Mark Estes from the University of Texas x 'Acknowledgements Preface' Medical Branch, Wendy Applequist from the William Brown Cen- ter for Plant Genetic Resources at the Missouri Botanical Garden, Gilbert Matsabisa from the Indigenous Knowledge Systems branch of the Medical Research Council in South Africa, and Josephine P. Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health in Wash- ington, D.C. From the ‘open air’, I give my deepest gratitude to Fire, Reuben and his family as well as to Phillip Kubukeli for their time and conscientiousness, as well as to Mrs. Skaap, Miranda, Tho- zama, Gustavo, Gerald Hansford, Nigel Gericke, Keith Wiseman, Jo Thobeka Wreford and colleagues such as anthropologists Leslie Green, Steven Robins and psychologist Lauren Muller for their time, thorough insights, hospitality and inspiration.